IPI Support Leading Up To the 2005 World Summit
After its release in December 2004, the High-level Panel report, along with the Millennium Project Report on development challenges, formed the primary inputs to the Secretary-General’s own report In Larger Freedom, which set the agenda for the September 2005 World Summit. Working closely with the office of the Secretary-General, successive Presidents of the General Assembly, and Member States, IPI aimed at moving forward key reform recommendations.
Central in our work were efforts to facilitate consensus among Member States. In this vein, immediately after the High-level Panel report’s release, IPI organized in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Malaysia a series of special informal briefings providing all Member States with an opportunity to share early reactions, ask questions of the Panel’s research director, and brainstorm about steps ahead [see meeting report]. A similar series of special informal briefings, once again in cooperation with the Mission of Malaysia, was held in the wake of the release of the Millennium Project Report [see meeting report].
Closer to the summit, with consensus in key areas still elusive, IPI organized another series of ‘Greentree retreats’, once again in cooperation with the governments of the Netherlands, Australia, Mexico, Singapore, and South Africa, providing key Member States, the President of the General Assembly, and his appointed ‘facilitators’ with an opportunity to discuss sticky issues outside the formal constraints of official UN fora [see meeting report].
In addition to facilitation activities, IPI worked on helping to flesh out some of the key issues put forward by the HLP. For example, in order to generate ideas and proposals on the potential mechanics of a Peacebuilding Commission, IPI held a Workshop in March 2005 on “Post-conflict Peacebuilding: A Conversation with National Leaders” [see meeting report] in cooperation with the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.
A second example relates to biosecurity. The High-level Panel report placed significant emphasis on major potential biosecurity threats facing the globe. In an attempt to prevent biosecurity from falling off the summit agenda and to generate practical recommendations, IPI organized a workshop on biosecurity, bringing together some of the world’s leading experts with selected member state representatives [see meeting report].